updated 07:30 pm EST, Mon January 31, 2011

Windows Phone 7 ghost data blamed on Yahoo

Extra sleuthing in tracking down the mystery Windows Phone 7 data use has pinned at least some of the responsibility on Yahoo e-mail code. Using a script to expose code, Rafael Rivera found that Yahoo's IMAP mail servers send a flood of code every time a Windows Phone 7 device tries to get e-mail. The traffic is about 25 times what's necessary and lead to any regular e-mail checks quickly consuming large amounts of bandwidth.

Rivera, part of the same team behind the ChevronWP7 jailbreak, suggested that users who need Yahoo mail on the phone either turn off cellular data and cling to Wi-Fi or else limit checking Yahoo to manual checks.

Neither Microsoft nor Yahoo has commented on whether Rivera is accurate. When it found the root cause, Microsoft blamed an unnamed third-party and said that it would have either a permanent fix or a workaround.

Yahoo isn't necessarily the only cause of any data leaks with the fledgling OS and could be accompanied by other services that regularly pull data. Some had speculated that Facebook's tight integration with the OS might be at fault, but Google's Gmail and other services have been mentioned in passing. Other mobile platforms like Android or iOS don't appear to have the same problem and suggest that the flaw is a unique combination of Microsoft's code with Yahoo's push mail.